Traditionally, plant nurseries have used inefficient processes to handle, tag and ship their plants to distributors or retailers. The traditional approach usually involves the pickers receiving a paper order form indicating the customer name, plant varieties and numbers desired. Pickers with a tractor driver would usually drive to various sites and put plants on a trailer. Once the order was completed, the tractor pulled the trailer into the shipping area for unloading, watering and trimming. Watering is usually done overhead with a hose (i.e. “top watering”). The trailers full of picked pots are traditionally pulled up to the prepping area where the plants are cleaned, trimmed, weeded and then tagged with a tag that displays a photo of the plant, specs and care instructions. These tags are traditionally ordered in advance from a tag printing company. An additional sticky tag was added at the time of shipping that displayed price, bar code, UPC, customer name, etc.
Applicant has realized that the foregoing traditional process for handling, tagging and shipping plants is highly inefficient and had no checks and controls in place. Accordingly, there remains a need for simple, cost-effective solutions to the related problems of handling, prepping, tagging and shipping of plants. An integrated solution to these related problems has, until now, yet to be devised.